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KevinH · 01-02-2011, 10:55 AM

Hi Valloric,

Burn out is a very serious problem for open source developers. I got involved porting the Java JDK 1.0 to Linux PowerPC and later Linux Intel. I got so stressed out over the JCK nonsense I basically gave up. I used to volunteer for the PowerPC Linux on Mach Kernel project (a precursor to Mac OSX on Mach kernel) eventually had to give things up (and Apple closed that project down). I used to volunteer patches for the Linux PowerPC kernel, glibc, etc and some drivers but gave that up. I used to volunteer for the OpenOffice.org project and helped finish their first ports to Linux PowerPC and Mac OSX (under X11 only) implementing their com bridge model and then later helped create their dictionary (MySpell) but just keeping up with bug reports, the "thankless" comments and complaints, truly fried me to a crisp. It got to the point it started to interfere with my relationship with my wife and work and my kids and at that point I knew I had to stop (and I did for almost 5 years). Eventually, I moved to a model will I simply contribute patches to things I care about and use *only*, with no major stake in any one project.

So do "WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO" to keep your sanity, not burn out, and keep a happy, healthy life going forward. If that involves adding ads to the installer to any platform, simply do it. If that involves changing the project model to focus on (reasonable!) features for paying customers, do it. Anything you need to make you feel right about what you do.

Sigil is a wonderful project. No one here would want to see if fade away. Do what you have to for you (and start sleeping at night again). Everyone here understands.

01-02-2011, 10:55 AM	#5
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,727 Karma: 5444398 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Hi Valloric, Burn out is a very serious problem for open source developers. I got involved porting the Java JDK 1.0 to Linux PowerPC and later Linux Intel. I got so stressed out over the JCK nonsense I basically gave up. I used to volunteer for the PowerPC Linux on Mach Kernel project (a precursor to Mac OSX on Mach kernel) eventually had to give things up (and Apple closed that project down). I used to volunteer patches for the Linux PowerPC kernel, glibc, etc and some drivers but gave that up. I used to volunteer for the OpenOffice.org project and helped finish their first ports to Linux PowerPC and Mac OSX (under X11 only) implementing their com bridge model and then later helped create their dictionary (MySpell) but just keeping up with bug reports, the "thankless" comments and complaints, truly fried me to a crisp. It got to the point it started to interfere with my relationship with my wife and work and my kids and at that point I knew I had to stop (and I did for almost 5 years). Eventually, I moved to a model will I simply contribute patches to things I care about and use only, with no major stake in any one project. So do "WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO" to keep your sanity, not burn out, and keep a happy, healthy life going forward. If that involves adding ads to the installer to any platform, simply do it. If that involves changing the project model to focus on (reasonable!) features for paying customers, do it. Anything you need to make you feel right about what you do. Sigil is a wonderful project. No one here would want to see if fade away. Do what you have to for you (and start sleeping at night again). Everyone here understands.